She
had not convinced me. If the recording angel had come down from
heaven to confirm her, and had opened his book to my mortal eyes,
the recording angel would not have convinced me.
We found the gardener at work as usual. No amount of questioning
could extract a single answer of any importance from the lad's
impenetrable stupidity. The woman who had given him the letter
was an elderly woman; she had not spoken a word to him, and she
had gone away towards the south in a great hurry. That was all
the gardener could tell us.
The village lay southward of the house. So to the village we went
next.
XII
Our inquiries at Limmeridge were patiently pursued in all
directions, and among all sorts and conditions of people. But
nothing came of them. Three of the villagers did certainly assure
us that they had seen the woman, but as they were quite unable to
describe her, and quite incapable of agreeing about the exact
direction in which she was proceeding when they last saw her,
these three bright exceptions to the general rule of total
ignorance afforded no more real assistance to us than the mass of
their unhelpful and unobservant neighbours.
The course of our useless investigations brought us, in time, to
the end of the village at which the schools established by Mrs.
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